Opinion: Of driving, tragedy and crime

What happened on the eastbound lanes of the Howard Frankland Bridge late one night in April was tragic. But, as Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober correctly asserted on Thursday, it was not criminal.

The driver who slammed into 23-year-old Richard McKeefery, as McKeefery was changing a tire, had swerved into the emergency lane because he was reaching for a cell phone. He was not speeding, and he was not found to have been drinking. Rather, he made a careless, thoughtless maneuver while driving: He leaned over to pick up a cell phone.

"It's a terrible tragedy, but our decision cannot be based on the emotions of the situation," Ober said. "We have to base our decision on the facts and the law."

The driver, Paul Martin, was appropriately cited with a traffic infraction -- careless driving. And the fact that his previous driving record includes other such infractions, and a violation in 1998 for driving with a suspended license, calls into question whether he is a safe enough driver to keep his license.

But the point that Ober was making goes to the core of a growing national debate about cell phone use while driving: There is a clear difference between unsafe actions and criminal conduct.

McKeefery's family wants Florida lawmakers to ban cell phone use while driving, but such a law won't prevent careless driving. Drivers face distractions every time they are behind the wheel -- the radio, fellow passengers, crying babies, food and drink, billboards, roadside attractions, road signs. Cell phones, a newer and high-tech distraction, can most certainly be dangerous. But many drivers, including law enforcement officers, have long used communications devices as an integral part of their vehicular work.

Those who have studied cell phone use while driving have reached no firm conclusions. An AAA study found that more than half of all accidents caused by driver distraction resulted from the driver's looking at something outside the car or changing the radio or talking to someone else in the car. A Florida survey of accidents, still in its infancy, has found only 0.1 percent of accidents blamed on cell phone use.

New York, the first state to ban cell phone use while driving, tried to strike a middle ground. Its law, adopted in June, specifically allows drivers to use cell phones that are not hand-held. Yet a University of Utah study released last week concluded that the distraction related to cell phones is not as much from handling or dialing the phone as from concentrating on the conversation.

Statistically, driving remains one of society's most dangerous activities. That's why states require prospective drivers to pass a written and road test to demonstrate their abilities, and the licensing process is still the best framework from which to govern bad driving -- to teach drivers the best safety practices and to punish, through license suspension or revocation, those who fail to meet those objectives.

The aim is to make driving safer. To ban any single form of driving distraction, though, is to potentially criminalize human carelessness. That, in itself, is a dangerous road to travel.

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